Don't Fence Me In

I live at the top of a hill. My neighbor to the east is a great guy who travels alot for his job and his thirty something son lives with him as well. We really like these guys. Very easy to get along with. The neighbor on the other side of them is the crankiest old guy you'll ever meet.

Example: Mr. McCrankypants is one of the original members of the neighborhood from the 60s. Nice Guy Eddie moved in about 20 years ago and we moved in about 7 years ago. Mr. McCrankpants hectored, lectured, ranted and raved about water drainage into his yard to the point where Nice Guy Eddie put in French drains. It's a really steep section of the hill - I'll bet the top of Crank's house is lower than the foundation of mine and it's only two houses down. Later, Nice Guy Eddie tells me that Crankster is still pissing and moaning because he's decided our yard is the problem and we need to put in French drains as well. I told Nice Guy Eddie that Mr McCrankpants failure to understand that water will flow downhill when he bought his house was not my problem and that in our house we obey the Laws of Gravity. If Mr McCrankypants cared to broach the issue directly with us, I'd be happy to discuss it and have French drains put in at his expense. That was the end of that.

So, Mr. McCrankypants is having a new fence installed (with no notice to the neighbor who shares it). The contractor got to the point where the posts were installed and then got tired of Crank's badgering about how he was working and walked off the job. So, no fence for the last two weeks. Problem is that Nice Guy Eddie has three huskies who, on Tuesday, figured out how to get out of the inner fence and there is no more outer fence so they are cavorting about the neighborhood. Nicest dogs in the world, but they can be mischevious and pretty destructive.

Remember the Day of the Dogs (June 20th)? Yeah, Heidi the Husky spent the Tuesday and Wednesday defying all fencing. After about two hours of chasing dogs on Wednesday, I got Heidi back in their yard and Rusty decided to join the party and I figured out how they were getting out. It was like watching a rat get into a teensy space. As long as the head can get through, the body can do anything. Jello Dogs. Of course, then I had to roll back the metal fence, prop the dog's front on the stone wall and then hoist the back end of the dog over the wall, hoping for at least minimal cooperation. These dogs weigh probably 50 to 60 pounds each and, standing, are as tall as I am. I'm wearing a skirt and flip flops. And both dogs had been in the pool. You can picture my loveliness. I finally got them back in and laced up the fencing so they couldn't get out again. The poor owner was so upset with the dogs and we had a consult about his fence and, by gum, they didn't get out yesterday.

Of course, now the dogs love me even more and whenever they hear my voice in the back yard they push on our fence and howl for me to come play. Cracks me up!

(And no, I was not going to call animal control. I know the dogs and where they live and getting your dog out of animal control costs about as much as getting your car out of impound.)